opera cake question

[dano1]

what do most folks top they're opera cake with? Pour on ganache or use a tempered chocolate sheet?

TIA, danny

[Wendy DeBord]

I use ganche. I feel it's too hard to cut with anything firmer....now that you mention it, I don't recall ever seeing someone use tempered chocolate on this. Isn't it usually straight chocolate with some butter?

[stscam]

I use melted couverture with a little peanut oil. This gives a semi-hard finish that is easily cut with a hot knife.

[confiseur]

You can use couverture mixed with ca. 3-5% neutral flavoured oil or the following recipe will give a nice finish:

250g Cream-35% fat

190g Milk

150g Glucose

Bring to the boil and add to

520g Chocolate couverture-50-60% cocoa solids

Cool down to 35-40c and stir in

90g unsalted butter

[Redsugar]

I will concur w/ Sinclair & stscam re their preferences for coating a Gâteau Opéra. Stscam's glaze ought to provide a nicely glossed finish.

I have long-understood that this elegant cake is a registered classic (created a century ago by Clichy), revived by Gaston Lenôtre back in the 1960s. Can this idea be factually documented?

Last week I spent some time looking through my notebooks for remarks I’ve recorded on this preparation. My best friend’s birthday will be celebrated later this month, and I was considering the Opéra for that party. (Although now I think it’s more likely to be either a triple-layer choc cake filled w/ ganache and covered by a Grand Marnier-white choc buttercream or a brown-sugar-&-pecan bourbon torte – w/ the view of targetting some of his fav. flavours.)

Anyway, reverting to the topic at hand: First of all, when making the joconde biscuit, do we use ground almonds, or almond “flour” in the batter? Second, do we use a flavoured 16° syrup or variation thereof? I will readily admit that, in most instances, I’ve somewhat simplified the technique from the get-go by baking a fairly straightforward almond génoise, brushing the layers w/ an coffee syrup (i.e., granulated sugar dissolved in hot espresso; Cognac can be added), sandwiching layers & top w/ coffee buttercream, freezing briefly to firm it up; covering w/ bittersweet choc ganache, and then, finally, pouring over a glaze (bittersweet + butter).

Recommended to us couverture in the ganache? Butter also? In the glaze, I like to use a Barry-Callebaut for coating, although most often it’s going to be Lindt 70% cocao. (Champagne taste; ginger-ale budget.)

To conclude, I would like to pose a question to Confiseur: What is the purpose of diluting the cream w/ milk in your glaze? Why not use pouring cream alone?

[dejaq]

I use a "mirror" chocolate glaze which can be used with exceptional results:

Boil:

800 gr corn syrup

1 qt heavy cream

200 gr glucose

pour on:

400 gr dark chocolate

2 kg pate a' glace

reheats nicely in microwave

[DiH]

pate a' glace

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uh... what is it?

Di

[Swisskaese]

Is the gateau call "Clichy" and "Opera" the same thing?

[Swisskaese]

2 kg      pate a' glace

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I believe this is chocolate glaze.

[nightscotsman]

pate a' glace is chocolate made with vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter. Otherwise known as "dipping chocolate" or "summer coating". Since there's no cocoa butter, you don't need to temper it and it's very liquid when melted, though of course the taste is dull and one-dimensional.

[DiH]

pate a' glace is...

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Swisskaese and nightscotsman, thank you both for sharing... most appreciated.

Di

[simdelish]

Is the gateau call "Clichy" and "Opera" the same thing?

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To most people, yes.

Louis Clichy premiered his now famous gâteau at the Exposition Culinaire of 1903 in Paris. The cake, with Clichy's signature across the top, won a silver medal and became the signature cake of his shop on the boulevard Beaumarchais. Over the years, the Clichy inspired many imitations, most notably the one from Dalloyau, who sold a very similar dessert under the name L'Opéra (in honor of the Paris Opera).

Clichy was also responsible for creating other cakes, most notably the Paris.

When Marcel Bugat went to work at Pâtisserie Clichy in 1955, he learned/made the gâteau, and his son Paul Bugat, who took over Clichy in 1970, still to this day makes the signature cake from the original recipe, in the same location where Louis Clichy established his pâtisserie in 1892.

So, I guess the answer is anyone can make an opera cake, but it's only a Clichy if it's from Clichy... (kind of like champagne)

Interestingly, I actually learned L'Opéra (from a French pastry book) as being made with praline buttercream, and a rum soaking syrup, --- with the coffee flavor only as a variation, and learned the Clichy made outright with the coffee. (Btw, for both I learned to make the joconde with TPT, and only a few teaspoons of flour)

[Lesley C]

Best topping for Opera cake:

500g Couverture mi-amer chocolate

200 unsalted butter

(this amount covers one large sheet pan-sized cake)

Stir butter into warm couverture and glaze while still warm.

This coating has the right consistency and allows a realistic amount of time for spreading. It also slices very well. You never ever put pure chocolate on an opera and a mirroir glaze looks cheap. The topping of an opera should be on the matte side, not glossy or -- God Forbid -- sticky!

I've tried a dozen recipes (with masse a glacer and the like) and this is the one that I like best.

Try it, you'll like it. Topped, of course, with a nice sheet of gold leaf.

PS: Do not, I repeat, do not look to the September issue of Gourmet Magazine for guidance. The Opera picture on the cover is ALL WRONG. It's too high, and the topping is swirly as opposed to smooth. Bad, very bad.

[Swisskaese]

The recipe I have for Gateau Clichy, which is from "The Art of Cake" and is as close to the original as you can get has a coffee buttercream and ganache filling with a glaze as follows:

For one 12 x 16-inch cake

4 1/2 oz (130g) European bittersweet chocolate

3/4 oz (20g); 1 1/2 tablespoons clarified butter, at room temperature

Temper the chocolate. Beat the clarified butter with a wooden spatula until smooth and creamy and stir into the chocolate. Pour it over the gateau and smooth the top surface with a large icing spatula. Let the chocolate set.

[simdelish]

The recipe I have for  Gateau Clichy, which is from "The Art of Cake" and is as close to the original as you can get

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Indeed, it should be, as The Art of the Cake was co-written by Paul Bugat!

[chefpeon]

PS: Do not, I repeat, do not look to the September issue of Gourmet Magazine for guidance. The Opera picture on the cover is ALL WRONG. It's too high, and the topping is swirly as opposed to smooth. Bad, very bad.

Perhaps this should be topic for a new thread.

Here's how I see it.

Let's say I decided to try the recipe for the Opera Torte out of Gourmet Magazine. Follow the instructions and it comes out just like the picture. Eat a bit of it and like how it tastes. Feed it to my friends and family and they like it too. So what's "wrong" with that? Maybe it's not the EXACT classic Opera torte created by Mr. Frenchy so-and-so, and maybe it's now how we learned to do it in pastry school, but if it looks good and tastes good, who cares?

In my career as a PC, I have seen so many variations on so many classic desserts it makes my head spin. Some are better than others. But are some "right" while others are "wrong"? I don't think so. I believe one of the great things about being a PC, is that we have the freedom to use our creativity to put our own signature on the things we make. I'm always toying with recipes.....I don't want to be some baking automaton that just does what the recipe tells me to. I want to utilize my skills and talent and make MY mark. I bet a lot of us do that. It's our nature I think.

I certainly don't want to make an Opera torte that looks like everyone else's......do you?

[nightscotsman]

I'm afraid I have to mostly agree with Lesley C. The Gourmet cake may be coffee and chocolate flavored and even taste wonderful (I've got no problem with that), but it ain't an Opera. Just like a Pilsbury Crescent Roll is most definitely not a croissant.

[Lesley C]

I'm a stickler for authenticity. If "anything goes", one day you'll end up with a creme caramel when you ordered a creme brulee. And that just leads to all out chaos.

An Opera has a sleek chocolate glaze, coffee-soaked jocondes, ganache in the middle, and a nice gold leaf decor on the top. That's an Opera. The other thingy is just another chocolate/coffee cake.

Back when I was a pastry chef, I developed a more and more severe attitude towards the classic cakes. Anyone can make something like an Opera, but wow, when you see it perfectly done, you understand what all the fuss is about.

[Swisskaese]

Indeed, it should be, as The Art of the Cake was co-written by Paul Bugat!

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Please forgive me for not mentioning that !!!

[dano1]

Thanks for the input everybody. I appreciate it :).

danny

[Wendy DeBord]

Would someone mind posting the recipe from The Art Of The Cake for me, please? I'd like to try their recipe, I don't think I have a definitive recipe for this. Don't post their dirrections as written, but if you put it in your own words it doesn't violate copy right. Thank-you.

[simdelish]

Would someone mind posting the recipe from The Art Of The Cake for me, please? I'd like to try their recipe, I don't think I have a definitive recipe for this. Don't post their dirrections as written, but if you put it in your own words it doesn't violate copy right. Thank-you.

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I can't post the recipe now, but can get to it tomorrow am. Unfortunately, it's one of those recipes that has 6 components, each with a different page reference...! But it is so good, I was making it weekly as a special for about 6 months at my last job, it was SOOOOO popular. The kitchen staff had fights over who got the end trimmings. (Don't you just love being the most popular person in the kitchen? )

If you are like me, every penny I have (and even those pennies that I don't have) goes towards books (and food, and wine). If you don't have Healy and Bugat's Art of Cake, you should get it. (my copy says $35 retail, Jessica's biscuit probably has it for close to half that) It is such a great reference if you do classic things in your work. I orginally bought it for selfish reasons...just so I could perfectly reproduce all those yummy pastries I bought EVERY SINGLE DAY when I lived in Paris. -- I swear that was my entire diet-- pastries, ... and wine, of course. Well... actually cheese too. Yea, pastries, cheese and wine. That's what I subsisted on.

[confiseur]

Redsugar..............the recipe with milk was given to me by Christine Ferber-a well known pastry-chef in the Alsace-I also used it at the famous (in Switzerland at least) Richemont school in Luzern.

You can of course vary the fat content in the glaze depending on what your preferences are-some prefer a firmer,others a free-flowing glaze.

There are of course a plethora of recipes for opera glaze and I have no issue whatsoever whether you are using either a softened couverture or a ganache based recipe. However a lot of people do seem to use pate a glace in a ganache style recipe,and though I realise the appearance will be acceptable the taste certainly leaves a lot to be desired

[Swisskaese]

Would someone mind posting the recipe from The Art Of The Cake for me, please? I'd like to try their recipe, I don't think I have a definitive recipe for this. Don't post their dirrections as written, but if you put it in your own words it doesn't violate copy right. Thank-you.

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It is a great book. Nightscotsman recommended it for a cake that I wanted to make for my wedding.

Edited September 23, 2004 by Swisskaese (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

I just wanted to add that I made the opera torte recipe from Dorie Greenspans book. I used Lesleys formula for the glaze and it was perfect! Thank-you Lesley!